This season, the NHL substituted their All-Star Game and festivities for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, a week-long tournament between Canada, the U.S., Sweden, and Finland. The tournament was filled with the NHL’s biggest stars as they represented their respective countries.
The 4 Nations Face-Off ended up being a ginormous success not only for the NHL but for the game of hockey as a whole.
Canada versus the U.S. was the premier matchup everybody was looking forward to in the tournament. During their first matchup, 10.1 million people tuned into the thrilling game where the U.S. beat Canada, 3-1, according to The Athletic.
That’s not even the best part.
Canada and the U.S. met each other again in the final, which was watched by 16.1 million viewers. 9.3 million of those viewers came from the U.S., and the other 6.3 million viewers came from Canada.
This is the second-most watched hockey game of the decade behind Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, which brought in 16.3 million viewers. In that game, Canada emerged victorious in a 3-2 overtime win against the U.S. to become the 4 Nations Face-Off champion.
I’d say that is a pretty successful outcome for the 4 Nations Face-Off. The league took a risk in doing away with their All-Star Game and was rewarded for their unique tournament. The tournament garnered more eyes on the game of hockey, something the league has been trying to do for years now.
In the NBA world, their 2025 All-Star game was a complete failure.
This season, the NBA changed their All-Star Game format to a tournament between four teams of eight players each. These four teams consisted of a mixture of all-time greats, young and upcoming players, and global players as well.
This new format did not work out as the NBA planned, as the game only averaged 4.7 million viewers, the second-least watched game on record with a 13 percent decrease in viewership from last year, according to Front Office Sports.
Another problem with the NBA’s All-Star game was the lack of participation. Stars like Lebron James, Anthony Edwards, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Anthony Edwards were all non-participants for the game. Losing out on multiple faces of the league certainly did not help the NBA in their mission to increase their television ratings.
In a league that already struggles to bring in high ratings, the NBA once again dropped the ball on All-Star weekend, something they can not afford to do.
While the NBA had one of their worst All-Star Games, the WNBA had their best.
The 2024 WNBA All-Star Game brought in a record 3.4 million viewers, an increase of 305 percent from last season’s game. There is no doubt that the new generation of stars like Angel Reese and Iowa City’s own Caitlin Clark played a massive part in the boost in numbers.
It even seems the league has acknowledged Clark’s star power as a boost for viewership, as the Indiana Fever announced in August 2024 that it will host the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis. Where the WNBA saw an opportunity, they took it.
Similarly, the NFL has been on top of its All-Star Game and already made a substantial change to its format.
Over the past decade or so, the NFL’s Pro Bowl Game has not even been worth watching, as the players have not even given 50 percent effort. It’s been more of a two-hand touch game of football than a showcase of the best players in the league and their skills.
The NFL took note of this and changed the Pro Bowl Game to a flag football game instead in 2023. In its first year of operation, the flag football game drew in 6.2 million viewers.
Despite all this change the league has made to make their Pro Bowl Game more exciting and watchable, the numbers have said otherwise. Television ratings for the flag football game have decreased three years in a row with this year’s game drawing 4.7 million viewers. That is an 18 percent decrease from the previous year which drew in 5.75 million viewers.
No matter what these leagues do to try and revamp their All-Star Games — minus the WNBA — it almost always results in failure. With the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off, the NHL may have cracked the code in bringing viewership back to All-Star Games. Expect to see more leagues that need a radical change follow the NHL’s format, as it has the numbers to back up its success.